Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 09:21:36 EST
From: a wreath of myrtle? and whee!
Subject: EXERCISE: Plot #14: Love: 20 Master Plots
[many more exercises available at
http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/exercises/exercises.html
don't let your writing muse get flabby! exercise regularly:-]
Based on the book "20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them)" by Ronald B.
Tobias. ISBN 0-89879-595-8.
Master Plot #14: Love
[Do you need somebody to love? -- beatles!]
(p. 168) "...Since we know conflict is fundamental to fiction, we also
know 'Boy Meets Girl' isn't enough. It must be 'Boy Meets Girl, But...'
The story hinges on the 'But...' These are the obstacles to love that
keep the lovers from consummating their affair."
"Sometimes the lovers are within what we might call social normals,
but situations arise that aren't conducive to love, and people won't
condone it. Unlike the lovers in forbidden love, who usually pay for
their 'folly' with their lives, these lovers have decent chancle of
overcoming the obstacles that make their affair such rough sailing."
Obstacles include confusion, misunderstanding, mistaken identities,
gimmicks (one of us is a Ghost!), madness...even the size of certain
organs (noses, for example).
(p. 171) "The first attempt to solve the obstacle is almost always
thwarted. Don't forget the Rule of Three. The first two attempts fail,
the third time's the charm...."
"The lesson of fairy tales is the basic lesson of all love
stories: Love that hasn't been tested isn't true love. Love must be
proved, generally through hardship."
(p. 172) "What makes a good love story? The answer lies more with the
characters than with the actions. That's why the love plot is a
character plot. A better way of putting it is by saying that successful
love stories work because of the 'chemistry' between the lovers. You
can create a plot that has plenty of clever turns and gimmicks, but if
the lovers aren't convincing in a special way, it will fall flat on its
face. ..."
(p. 173) "...If you want to break away from Everylover and write about
two (or more) characters who are unique, you must delve into the
psychology of people and love. _A love story is story about love denied
and either recaptured or lost._ Its plan is simple; executing the plan
is not. It all depends on your ability to find two people who are
remarkable in either a tragic or a comic way as they pursue love."
(p. 175) talking about how to write something original in this
well-plowed field... "A sincere work--a work of sentiment--generates its
own power; a sentimental work borrows feelings from stock. Rather than
create characters or events that generate unique feelings, the
sentimentalist merely relies on stock characters and events that already
have their emotions built in."
(p. 178) Don't forget the down side--falling out of love.
"Falling out of love is about people, too. It's about the end rather
than the beginning of a relationship. The sucess of your story depnds
on an understanding of who your characters are and what has happened to
them. By the end of your story, the situation is driven to crisis,
which results in some kind of resolution: resignation to perpetual
warfare, divorce and death being the most common resolutions."
The Structure:
Depends on the nature of the plot you intend to use. You are going to
have to adapt.
One common one: two lovers find each other in the beginning
and then circumstances step in to separate them. The phases are:
1. Lovers Found. Present the two main characters and establish the
relationship. Deep love, marriage...and disaster strikes. Kidnapping,
parental moves, ex-spice, war, disease, accident, the flying fickle
finger of fate...
2. Lovers split. One (or both) of the two tries to
find/rescue/reunite/rekindle. Usually one is active, while the other is
relatively passive. Setbacks, complications, and troubles ensure that
the situation gets worse, not better.
3. Lovers reunited! Somehow, someway, when you least expect it--Candid
Camera will bring them together! "Opportunity presents itself to the
diligent, and the active lover finally finds an opening that allows her
either to overcome the antagonist or [overcome] the preventative
force..."
Checklist:
1. Do you meet the prospect of love with a major obstacle, so that
while your characters obviously want it, they can't have it.
2. Do your lovers have the obstacle of being ill-met? E.g., from
different social classes, backgrounds, physically mismatched?
3. Do you thwart the first attempt to solve the obstacle? Do you make
sure that success doesn't come easily, and that the only way to love is
dedication and persistence?
4. Do you show us that one lover is more aggressive than the other, and
provide us with good reasons for the difference?
5. Did you force a happy ending when your story really is sad?
6. Did you make your main characters appealing, convincing, real
people? Are their personalities and their situation unique and
interesting? Do you really feel for your characters?
7. Do you develop a full range of feelings and emotions in your story?
Don't focus just on the positive feelings--use some dark to bring out
the light of your story.
8. Do you understand the role of sentiment and sentimentality in your
story and use the right mix for the market you are aiming at?
9. "Take your lovers through the full ordeal of love. Make sure they
are tested (individually and collectively) and that they finally deserve
the love they seek. Love is earned; it is not a gift. Love untested is
not true love."
That's what Tobias has to say...now let's see.
How about picking a number from one to six?
1. Work
2. Social/cultural/class differences
3. Disease/addiction
4. Parents/family/friends
5. Sexual desires/experiences (including rape, impotence, etc.)
6. Psychological/Personality differences
Stop here and think a bit. You have an issue or topic there, something
that could get in between our lovers and cause some problems. Make a
list of five (or more! but at least five) specific problems that might
get in their way.
Now, I pick number four! Yes, that's right, take number four off your
list of specific problems. Think about it. Expand on it. Embroider
the edges of the difficulty, and consider how to use this problem to
make your lovers walk across hot coals to be together.
And, if you'll pick yet another one of those wonderful numbers from one
to six?
1. I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations. Jean
Anouilh, The Lark, (1955), 2, adapted by Lillian Hellman.
2. To love without criticism is to be betrayed. Djuna Barnes,
Nightwood, (1937)
3. First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object
clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks,
silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context.
Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris (1935), 2.5.
4. Unable are the Loved to die/For Love is Immortality. Emily
Dickinson, poem (c. 1864)
5. We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of
their defects as well as of their qualities. Jacques Maritain,
Reflections on America (1958), 3.
6. Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and
salute each other. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, May 14,
1904, tr. M.D. Herter Norton.
[Quotes taken from The International Thesaurus of Quotations, by Rhoda
Thomas Tripp, ISBN 0-06-091382-7]
So now you have a quotation about love. That goes with the problem that
is going to get in the way of love. One of the simpler plots is to
start with this quotation, and a heaping portion of love--but the lovers
don't quite understand the quotation yet. Now separate, mix, blend,
chop, and let the seasonings simmer...until they learn! and bring them
back together, wiser and tougher, with love on high...
Our problem right now probably is to pick the characters. How about
this? Take your two numbers from above. Multiply together. And find
the result below:
1-6: Father and child
7-12: Homosexual males
13-18: Adults, heterosexual
19-24: Teenagers, heterosexual
25-30: Homosexual females
31-36: Mother and child
Feel free to elaborate. For example, if you have a pair of heterosexual
adults, are they an old married couple (yes, love does happen there
too...) or perhaps a pair meeting for the first time at the corner bar?
Build up the two characters into full rounded people, who really do have
a relationship (where did they go on their first date? What happened?
and so on).
Pick out the scene you want to use to show us how much they care for
each other. It can be their wedding, or maybe it's walking through the
National Zoo in Rock Creek Park, throwing peanuts to the chimps and
laughing together at one of the outside tables where busloads of kids
eat their lunches...
Sketch in the disaster striking. Make us feel the pain of that
separation, the shock of it.
And then show us the struggle. The first attempts to overcome the
problem--and the failure. The renewed determination, the refusal to
give in, the dark nights of crying and fear...make us sweat!
Finally, when it seems as if there is nothing, no way to win...that
peanut in your pocket is just the thing that will tip the scale and give
you a chance to win through! or maybe not?
Your choice as to whether you are going to play it for laughs (two dirty
old men, just learning that being dirty together is more fun than being
dirty alone?) or for romantic (young love, sweet love...ah, the
innocence) or for serious (love, transforming the world, but at what
price!).
You might like to think about how you would answer the following
questions. I've borrowed this list from Barry Longyear's suggestions
in Science Fiction Writer's Workshop I, ISBN 0-913896-18-7.
Background
1. Where are we? (setting)
2. Who is involved? (characters, strengths, flaws)
3. Where are they headed? (goals, motives)
4. What stops or blocks them? (obstacle(s))
5. What are they going to do about it? (plans to overcome problems)
Story
6. What hook(s) or bait for the reader will I use? (where start)
What story question do I pose for the reader?
7. What backfill is needed? (background that needs to be filled in)
8. What buildup do I want? (scenes)
9. What is the climax?
- how does the character change? (overcome weakness, etc.)
- how is the plot resolved? (overcome problems and achieve goals)
- What answer does the reader get to the story question?
Higher Level
10. What purpose, moral, or theme am I writing about?
Write us a story!
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